Feb. 20, 2013
SAN ANTONIO, Texas - San Diego State swimmers won a pair of relays and the divers competed on the 1-meter springboard as the Aztecs completed the first three events at the 2013 Mountain West Swimming & Diving Championships Wednesday at the Palo Alto College Aquatic center in San Antonio, Texas. At the end of the opening day of the four-day meet SDSU finds itself in first place, nine points ahead of both UNLV and New Mexico.
After the first three events of the meet, SDSU sits atop the team standings with 93 points followed by UNLV and New Mexico with 84. Boise State is a close fourth with 82 points followed by Nevada (81), Fresno State (77), Wyoming (65), Colorado State (51) and Air Force (46).
The Aztecs got Wednesday evening's finals session off to a stellar start as they captured first in the 200 medley relay. The foursome of Chelsea Bailey, Katelyn Weddle, Gemma Johnson and Whitney Weisz turned in a time of 1:37.93. Not only was their time a new school record (by 1.46 seconds), it was also an automatic qualifying time for next Month's NCAA Championships in Indianapolis. That time is the 11th-fastest in NCAA Division I this season.
San Diego State also won the 800 freestyle relay, again in a school-record time. The quartet of Jessica Crider, Meghan Zimmer, Kelly Marquenie and Melanie Garibaldi went 7:40.65 to ensure that the Aztecs took maximum points from the evenings two swimming races.
On the 1-meter springboard, three Aztec divers finished among the top 16 to score points for their team. Junior Anna Steiner was SDSU's top performer, winning the consolation final (ninth place overall) with a score of 281.73. Senior Rafaella Suarez was 14th at 237.15 while freshman Ashley Stott place 16th with a mark of 200.25.
Conference swimming and diving action on Thursday (Feb. 23) gets underway at 11:00 a.m. (CT) with prelims in the 500 free, 200 individual medley, 50 free and 3-meter diving. The finals of those four events along with the 400 medley relay will commence at 6:00 p.m. (CT) that evening.
Complete up-to-the minute coverage of the 2012 Mountain West Championships including live scoring can be found by clicking here.
Day One Team Scores1. San Diego State...932. UNLV..............843. New Mexico........844. Boise State.......825. Nevada............816. Fresno State......777. Wyoming...........468. Colorado State....519. Air Force.........46